Part 1 (1/2)
Three Little Women.
by Gabrielle E. Jackson.
CHAPTER I
The Carruths
The afternoon was a wild one. All day driving sheets of rain had swept along the streets of Riveredge, hurled against windowpanes by fierce gusts of wind, or dashed in miniature rivers across piazzas. At noon it seemed as though the wind meant to change to the westward and the clouds break, but the promise of better weather had failed, and although the rain now fell only fitfully in drenching showers, and one could ”run between the drops” the wind still bl.u.s.tered and fumed, tossing the wayfarers about, and tearing from the trees what foliage the rain had spared, to hurl it to the ground in sodden ma.s.ses. It was more like a late November than a late September day, and had a depressing effect upon everybody.
”I want to go out; I want to go out; I want to go out, _out_, OUT!”
cried little Jean Carruth, pressing her face against the window-pane until from the outside her nose appeared like a bit of white paper stuck fast to the gla.s.s.
”If you do you'll get wet, _wet_, WET, as sop, _sop_, SOP, and then mother'll ask what _we_ were about to let you,” said a laughing voice from the farther side of the room, where Constance, her sister, nearly five years her senior, was busily engaged in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a hat, holding it from her to get the effect of a fascinating bow she had just pinned upon one side.
”But I haven't a single thing to do. All my lessons for Monday are finished; I'm tired of stories; I'm tired of fancy work, and I'm tired of--_everything_ and I want to go _out_,” ended the woe-begone voice in rapid crescendo.
”Do you think it would hurt her to go, Eleanor?” asked Constance, turning toward a girl who sat at a pretty desk, her elbows resting upon it and her hands propping her chin as she pored over a copy of the French Revolution, but who failed to take the least notice of the question.
Constance made a funny face and repeated it. She might as well have kept silent for all the impression it made, and with a resigned nod toward Jean she resumed her millinery work.
But too much depended upon the reply for Jean Carruth to accept the situation so mildly. Murmuring softly, ”You wait a minute,” she slipped noiselessly across the room and out into the broad hall beyond. Upon a deep window-seat stood a papier-mache megaphone.
Placing it to her lips, her eyes dancing with mischief above its rim, she bellowed:
”Eleanor Maxwell Carruth, do you think it would hurt me to go out now?”
The effect was electrical. Bounding from her chair with sufficient alacrity to send the French Revolution cras.h.i.+ng upon the floor, Eleanor Carruth clapped both hands over her ears, as she cried:
”Jean, you little imp of mischief!”
”Well, I wanted to make you hear me,” answered that young lady complacently. ”Constance had spoken to you twice but you'd gone to France and couldn't hear her, so I thought maybe the megaphone would reach across the Atlantic Ocean, and it _did_. Now can I go out?”
”_Can_ you or may you? which do you mean,” asked the eldest sister somewhat sententiously.
Constance laughed softly in her corner.
”O, fiddlesticks on your old Englis.h.!.+ I get enough of it five days in a week without having to take a dose of it Sat.u.r.day afternoon too. I know well enough that I _can_ go out, but whether you'll say yes is another question, and I want to,” and Jean puckered up her small pug-nose at her sister.
”What a s.p.u.n.ky little body it is,” said the latter, laughing in spite of herself, for Jean, the ten-year-old baby of the family was already proving that she was likely to be a very lively offspring of the Carruth stock.
”And where are you minded to stroll on this charming afternoon when everybody else is glad to sit in a snug room and take a Sat.u.r.day rest?”
”Mother isn't taking hers,” was the prompt retort. ”She's down helping pack the boxes that are to go to that girls' college out in Iowa. She went in all the rain right after luncheon, and I guess if _she_ can go out while it poured 'cats and dogs,' I can when--when--when--well it doesn't even pour _cats_. It's almost stopped raining.”
”Where _do_ you get hold of those awful expressions, Jean? Whoever heard of 'cats and dogs' pouring down? What _am_ I to do with you? I declare I feel responsible for your development and--”
”Then let me go _out_. I need some fresh air to develop in: my lungs don't pump worth a cent in this stuffy place. It's hot enough to roast a pig with those logs blazing in the fire-place. I don't see how you stand it.”